Oh that someone could come up with a unique names for these media plugins, so darned confusing.

I too think that an update from the bp-album/bp-media crew would be in order, looking at their various online homes for the project has me confused, especially on the googlecode ones where there appear to be pages not found and no downloads for the beta/nightlies and on the github account little activity apart from some minor commits to the released bp-album version but no bp-media repo.

And an honest appraisal of when they think bp-media may see the light of day as a RC or Stable, it’s been in development for nearly three years, yes it’s complex dealing with media but three years, even in a OS volunteer project should be close to producing a stable version or at least a core principle.

@Hugo I agree. A media manager for BuddyPress will logically be called BuddyPress Media. And that is why when we started off, our plugin was called BuddyPress Media.

After this happened, BP-Album developers also decided to expand BP-Album into a higher realm and for some reason decided to disregard the fact that a plugin by that name, already exists.

Also, for various reasons, some beyond my comprehension, it was a more vocal and more popularly discussed plugin, compared to the original BuddyPress Media that we were steadily developing.

With time, our work has been rewarded on a good scale and helped us improve the functionality, fix bugs quickly thanks to our users and bundle a couple of languages. Our development has been very transparent and accessible for users who have been talking to us, fortunately, throughout.

But that’s enough of blowing our own trumpet. We’ve been getting repeated user requests for an importer for BP-Album and with this new development, we will push this higher on our priority than it was.

@saurabhshukla Yes I’m aware that your plugin had been around for some time before and with that name! And yes to the other points of puzzlement.

I personally would push an importer to the very top of your to do list, as it will allow user choice in the event a decision has to be made by users.

fwiw I looked at your plugin years ago and what made me back of then was the tie in with kultura(sic) at the time we weren’t looking to be tied to a third party service, but that’s not intended as a critism of the plugin as it stands.

I agree, when the plugin was developed initially, it was just a port between BuddyPress and Kaltura. However, subsequently, it evolved into an independent user media manager and we separated the Kaltura port into a paid addon.

However, I’m here with news about the BP-Album successor. The team got so irritated by the constant confusion that they’ve removed all their code and hidden it in a top secret place and are getting a secret name copyrighted. They are then going to create the associated usernames and other handles of their social media machinery.

After that they’ll be releasing it as a surprise with a bang to their users. I’ve heard it from @foxly here:

I don’t think that’s how it is. However, in any case, the name of the plugin matters only to a certain extent. I’m sure users value functionality, accessibility, attentive ears more than whether a plugin is named in a certain manner.

So, we wouldn’t be bothered by such an issue. We shall cross the bridges when they arrive.

I am just a user of BuddyPress and as such don’t have much of a say in the matter, however this becomes very difficult for us regulars users to decide who is legit. The two BuddyPress Media’s are going to confuse the end user enormously.
Whenever someone adds PAID to their plugin, that takes on a whole different meaning. Open source is just that, open!
So if anyone is confused on this subject – it would really be helpful if someone like modemlooper could spell it out. Any spelling on the wall is appreciated.

If you do check it out, BuddyPress Media is a media manager adding and abetting users’ community experience.

Users get to upload images into multiple albums that they are free to create, edit or delete. BP-album, as it stands, creates a My Pictures album where users upload their pictures.

BuddyPress Media goes a step ahead and allows users to upload videos amd audio, as well. Then it goes ahead and plays the audio and media with an html5 video player that falls back on flash & silverlight.

The uploader is the default WordPress uploader. When a user uploads media, activities are created.

All this is available at the group level, as well.

The only other thing that BP-album does is allow users to set privacy levels of each image. This is currently under development at BuddyPress Media along with the ability to upload media directly from the activity stream.

All the media can be favourited and commented upon.

All this is free and open source.

The premium addons that we sell, perform an extra task. On a capable server, we enable users to uplaod videos and audio in any format and convert these to standard mp3 and mp4 formats.

The comparison stands verifiable by a single install.

The project is hosted on github http://github.com/rtCamp/buddypress-media for anybody to extend it any way they feel like. In fact, someone can possibly create free alternatives to our premium offerings, using all the free and open source code. That’s how transparent it is.

When we submitted the plugin to the WordPress repository, if there would’ve been a problem with the name, we would’ve been told so. So, I don’t feel that was the issue here.

The second BuddyPress Media has never been released, officially. BP-Album was released after BuddyPress Media. General common sense dictates that if you have an existing plugin by the same name, you go ahead and change the name. We all do that. It’s obvious that otherwise the users will get confused and all three parties lose out, both the development teams and users. Which is what just happened here.

Which plugin is a better plugin is always open to discussions and enquiry. That’s competition and it brings out the best from the competitors for the users. Win win. Utopia.

As far as naming hoopla is concerned, even if we are asked to remove BuddyPress from the name, ever, we have no qualms rechristening. However, it needs to be official.

So, let’s lay this discussion to rest. I invite all of you to come see what we’ve built. It’s not perfect. Its not ideal. It does what it promises amd does it well. It is evolving fast, becoming less buggy, faster, prettier and more accessible with time. Most importantly, we talk to our users and listen to them.

No that is wholly erroneous, just because a plugin asks for a payment does make it any less worthwhile than one that doesn’t, this belief that OS == free is hugely harmful to developers and the value that there time & skill has. Yes there are many great plugins that do not ask for any form of remuneration but they are NOT free, simply because work is released under a GPL licence as a derivative work does not make it free they nearly always represent a huge amount of investment of someone’s time and skill and if were directly costed would easily run to a 4 figure value. The best approach good plugins take is to split the work into a basic or lite version and a premium one with extras that is paid for, tbh and imho the whole nature of plugin and theme work in the WP sphere is out of hand and has engendered an impression of development work that is quite often grossly below it’s actual cost & value.

But I rant and digress from the thread topic so we probably conclude this thread now as we have had a roundabout answer to events surrounding the state of play with the bp-media plugin.

Whoa, please do not take it that I am saying a web dev’s work is not and should not be valued. That is my profession, trust me I understand the appreciation of being paid for hard work! But as you said that is a totally different topic. I was just stating an opinion on plugins.

Honestly I’m really fed up with this plugin… the beta for it was originally scheduled to launch December 2011 and it has yet to see the day of light. I don’t care about the whole name drama, I care about the future of this plugin and how it relates to my site and what my options are.

@foxly could you please set up and clear up what the heck we can expect? Honestly? I’m finding it very odd that you’re responding to stuff in the plugin repository after a year and a half of telling people you ignore those threads and only respond to ones here.

@saurabhshukla do you have a newsletter/twitter feed/etc that I can subscribe to for notifications on when the importer will be ready?